


Deprivation

by norgbelulah



Category: Fringe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Sensory Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-29
Updated: 2011-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-26 16:13:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was Walter who first suggested using the sensory deprivation tank to try and recover their memories of Peter Bishop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deprivation

**Author's Note:**

> Fills the "sensory deprivation" prompt on my hc_bingo card.

It was Walter who first suggested using the sensory deprivation tank to try and recover their memories of Peter Bishop.

Olivia was silent, standing cross-armed in the corner, and Astrid kept looking between everyone uncertainly, especially at Peter.

Lincoln was debriefed over the phone before he arrived by Broyles, who said, “Peter Bishop claims to be the son of Walter Bishop, who presumably died at age 10. He somehow has extensive knowledge of Fringe Division cases and personnel, though he has been wrong about a few things. He insists our timeline, in fact, the timelines of both universes, have been rewritten due to the activation of the machine.”

“But the machine was only online for a few minutes, no one could operate it,” Lincoln had replied.

“I know, Agent Lee. That’s what Bishop says.” Broyles growled.

“Does Dr. Bishop believe him?”

Broyles sighed audibly over the line. “Agent Dunham says she thinks he’d like to. He’s very interested in the idea of alternate timelines versus alternate universes.”

When Lincoln entered the lab that morning, the unfamiliar man had smiled at him and said, “Good to see you again, Agent Lee. I’m Peter.” He had an honest face and seemed to really be glad to see him. Lincoln had shook his hand and returned the smile tightly. It was unnerving, thinking that this man might have met him before without his remembering it. He wasn’t able to say anything in reply before Olivia came up behind them and asked to speak to him in the next room.

They stood on opposite sides of Walter’s sleeper sofa as she said, “We’re not trusting him.” There was something stubborn in her eyes, something that made Lincoln think she was going against her gut on the matter.

“But you want to,” Lincoln said. “Trust him, I mean. Right?”

She glared again but finally sighed, “I do.” There’s more uncertainty in her voice and expression than he’s ever seen before. “I mean, I don’t know-- He’s...”

“It’s fine,” Lincoln said, raising his hands. “We’re not trusting him, yet. Are we... trying to find out if there’s truth to his story?”

Olivia grimaced. “Walter’s got a few ideas.”

Somehow, Lincoln was the one chosen to go into the tank.

“Three years is too many memories to attempt to access,” Walter had muttered in a low voice, shuffling up and down the lab, his chin set in one hand, the other fiddling with the buttons on his lab coat. “You could be overloaded, fry your synapses!” Lincoln assumed he was talking to Olivia, since she was the first to volunteer, but he wasn’t looking at her. “Too many memories, too many emotions, too fast. No.”

Olivia was watching Walter with a concerned expression that Lincoln noticed was mirrored on Peter’s face.

“Okay, Walter,” she said easily. “We’ll think of something else.”

Peter watched the man he claimed to be his father like he was a troubling and sad stranger. “Walter,” he finally said, with an almost fond gruffness to his tone, “Walter, why don’t you sit down and think about it?”

Walter sat after shooting a somewhat baffled look at Peter and muttered some more unintelligible things to himself.

Lincoln was too interested in the strange group dynamics that they had just acquired to really contribute, and he thought Astrid was as well. He saw that she had noticed both Olivia and Peter’s preoccupation with Walter. She kept slinging clandestine glances at Olivia, then at Peter, then at Walter and she bit her lip once or twice. Finally, she met Lincoln’s gaze and he tried to convey to her that he thought it was… unnerving, to say the least. She gave him a weak, reassuring smile.

He was brought back to the conversation by the sound of Peter saying, “What about Agent Lee?”

“Excuse me?” Lincoln and Olivia said, practically at the same time.

Peter seemed abashed at their double stare and replied, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to volunteer you. I just realized, we’ve only met once before. Well, I guess, I mean, I met you. But anyway, your memories of me would only be about forty-eight hours’ worth.”

“Perfect,” Walter cried, jumping up from his seat. “Madison, you’ll do it, then.”

Lincoln practically whirled around to face the old man. Not caring that he probably looked like a deer in headlights, he said, “Um, I’m sorry, but what exactly would this entail?”

Walter walked up to him, all benevolent smiles, and patted him on the arm. “Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, “We’ll just shoot you full of hallucinogenic drugs, stick some electrodes on you, and chuck you into a tank full of saline-solution.” He was already pouring over his table of instruments.

Lincoln shot a glance at Olivia, “Uh, I’m not entirely--”

She moved forward fast, grasping Walter by the shoulder before he could pick up any more threatening medical supplies. There was already a syringe in his hand. “You don’t have to,” she assured Lincoln. “Really, Walter, remember, we don’t volunteer people to participate in experiments, they volunteer themselves.”

She shot him a look that he thought was either an apology or a plea for understanding.

Lincoln licked his lips and spoke before he could stop to think about it. “I’m not saying I won’t do it.”

Everyone stared at him.

That was how he ended up naked, except for his boxers, sitting sideways on Dr. Bishop’s examination chair.

They were talking about how they could access his memories of Peter without there being some kind of psychic link.

“When I did this with John, he was in a coma. How can we do this with you, if you’re fully conscious?” Olivia asked Peter.

Lincoln looked over at them while Walter was busy attaching electrodes to his head. “This is happening right now,” he gestured up and down his nearly naked body, “and you’re not completely sure how and why it will work?”

“It might not work,” Walter cheerfully interjected. “In fact, we might just tear your consciousness open, drive you mad.”

Lincoln batted his hands away. “What?”

“No,” Peter raised his hand for silence. “I don’t think I have to be unconscious for it to work. Walter and I talked about it. If I talk to you while you’re in the tank, if I prompt you to recall those memories, we won’t need that kind of connection. The memories are your own, not mine. I didn’t create another universe with that machine, I inadvertently altered the timeline. It was still you who I met.”

“Right,” Lincoln drew it out slow, mulling it over. “I… suppose that makes sense.”

He listened to Peter and Olivia talk while Walter continued attaching the electrodes.

“When you did this with John, who was here with you? It wasn’t just Walter, right?” Peter spoke quietly, in a strangely intimate manner, but they weren’t so far away that Lincoln couldn’t hear.

“Astrid assisted. And Charlie stayed to help get me inside the tank,” she said, looking at him quizzically. Her hair was loose today and it spilled over her shoulder. Lincoln wondered if she’d worn it that way consciously. “You were here then, I gather? In your… timeline?”

“I was here. You needed me to sign Walter out of the loony bin. I was ready to have him recommitted because of what he proposed doing to you. Except that you were so willing to go for any possible solution.” There was something in Peter’s eyes that Lincoln felt uneasy about, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was or why he felt that way.

Walter presented Lincoln with a metallic probe of some kind. “Tilt your head forward,” he demanded.

“What the hell is that?”

Walter just huffed at him, but Olivia came to his defense again. “It’s to monitor your brain function,” she answered. “The electrodes are for your vitals. I’ll tell you right now, it’s going to hurt like hell. But we need to know you’re okay in there. If you’re not, we’ll be able to pull you out.”

Lincoln nodded. “Fine,” he said to Walter. “Okay, that’s fine.”

“Oh,” the older man said, looking somewhat flustered. “The anesthetic. That might make things a little more pleasant.”

Lincoln laughed nervously until he felt a sharp prick at the back of his neck. Olivia eyed him sympathetically. A moment later, the probe going in felt like he’d just been shot with a staple gun and he nearly toppled off the chair. “Jesus,” he croaked but Olivia was there to keep him upright. Her hands were warm on his exposed skin. The lab was never warm, even on fair days. “You didn’t even wait for it to take effect,” he groaned.

Walter waved his hand. “The anesthetic is for the ache, not the stab. Hopefully, it will last until we have to pull it out of you.”

“Oh my God,” Lincoln said, and then put his head in his hands. His neck was still aching.

“Hey, there are actual rational and sane people in this room, Agent Lee,” Peter called from the table of instruments and readouts. “Don’t let him get to you. We wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t really quite brilliant.”

The words themselves were somewhat comforting, but then Lincoln remembered that Peter hadn’t been here, and that he seemed more perturbed by whatever perceived changes he’d found in his father than happy to see him again.

Olivia was still near him and Astrid stepped forward to hand something to Walter. “He’s right, Lincoln,” she said and he was glad she used his first name. He always felt more like a part of the team when they did that, though he hadn’t been there long enough for it to really stick.

He couldn’t believe he’d volunteered to do this. He wondered if it was some bizarre initiation he was undergoing. They’d tell him later Peter Bishop had been around the whole time, just on vacation or something. He wished that were true.

Then he looked at Olivia who was watching Peter with a mixture of distrust and something else in her eyes and he knew he was doing the right thing.

 

There is a prick in his arm followed by the rush of something through his vein. Lincoln looks from Walter to Olivia, and then sort of loses the train of his thoughts. If he was going to ask a question, he can’t think of it at the moment.

He looks at her with his mouth hanging open when she says, “It’s the drugs, Lincoln.”

“Right,” he says and furrows his brow. “Right.”

Astrid steps in front of his view of Olivia and he frowns for real at her. She raises her hands and pulls his glasses off his face. She peers at him then smiles. “That stuff hit you hard already,” she says.

He looks around and even without his full powers of vision, everything does look a little funny, though he’d be hard pressed to say just how. “Cold medicine,” he says slowly, “always comes at me like a ton of bricks. Nyquil, I’m out in ten, flat.”

Someone laughs and he can see her again. “Liv,” he says smiling, and reaches out to his partner.

He thinks maybe there’s a weird flicker of something in Peter’s eyes, but he dismisses it because she takes his hand. There’s a funny little quirk to her lips as he looks at him. “Let’s get you drunk sometime,” she says.

“Alcohol dun’t work the same way,” he slurs and twines his fingers with hers. Her smile gets bigger.

“Too much stimuli,” Walter barks. “If I had known he’d go under so fast, I would have administered the cocktail in the tank itself! Get him in, hurry.”

Peter comes around Lincoln’s other side and pulls one of his arms across his shoulders. Olivia takes the other side. Her hair falls across his skin and he shivers as they walk towards the tank.

“Hey, that’s full of water,” he says, and it is.

“Yeah,” she says patiently. “We’re gonna put you in it now, okay?”

He hums a yes then sort of stumbles down into the tank, splashing the surprisingly warm water all over Liv and Peter in the process. “Sorry,” he says, and she shakes her head at him, reaching forward to fix one of the electrodes at his temple.

“I’m still surprised you’re actually doing this,” she says and there’s appreciation in her voice. He smiles and moves his fingers around in the water like he’s waving it off, like it’s nothing at all. At this point all he’s done is gotten stabbed and kind of high.

“Thank you,” Peter says sincerely and he glances sidelong at Olivia.

Lincoln’s floating weirdly in the water now and he’s thinking about how it’s kind of nice instead of actually responding verbally to what they said. They both smile small, tension-filled smiles and close the doors on him.

Lincoln’s not worried. This is all kind of cool.

The tank itself is boring, so he closes his eyes and just floats. It feels kind of like the ocean, but the salt smell is way more sterile and he can’t hear any seagulls.

“Okay, Agent Lee,” someone says and the sound echoes through the tank. “Lincoln,” he says, like someone corrected him.

“Peter,” Lincoln says. “Right.” Peter Bishop. He’s supposed to remember Peter Bishop.  
“I met you when we were handed a case that involved a woman you had been investigating.” Peter was speaking slowly, evenly. “Her name was Dana Grey.”

“Dana Grey,” Lincoln repeats.

A fiery red ball explodes across Lincoln’s vision, but it’s far away. It flickers in and out like a damaged film reel.

He knew a Dana Green in high school. She screwed two of his friends and looked great in her prom dress. He read Dorian Gray that year in English.

His vision flickers again and he sees a picture of Dana in her green dress, or maybe it had been blue, blue-green. She’s blonde. She’s crying. He never saw Dana Green cry. She’s wearing a coat and she’s so much older.

“I have no choice,” he says, but he’s repeating something he heard once.

“Lincoln,” Peter says, excitement edging out the calm, slowness of his speech, “Do you remember Dana Grey?”

“She’s gone.”

The fireball returns, erupting from seemingly nowhere in a frozen field past farm fences and electric poles. He knows the bomb went off.

He’s on a train, clamoring up against the windows. He looks to his right and Peter’s there. The train is stopped on the tracks. He sees regret, confusion in Peter’s eyes.

He’s kneeling in front of a dead woman. Dana. There are burns across the side of her face. He closes her eyes gently. He shakes Peter’s gloved hand.

“…every answer you get just leads you to more questions,” he hears Peter say.

Peter sounds tired, Lincoln thinks. He likes him. He wants more questions. He wants more insanity in his life. He’s surprised by how good he is at insanity. He’d prefer that to Hartford. He doesn’t have much there anyway… though that doesn’t seem right at all.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Peter says, and it sounds like goodbye.

This is the end, Lincoln realizes. This isn’t how they met.

Someone hands him a report. She’s in Boston.

He thinks about dead bodies on the drive from Hartford. He thinks about dead bodies that get back up again and how no one in the office will talk about Dana Grey. No one but Lincoln wants to pursue it.

“This is Special Agent Lincoln Lee from Hartford,” he hears Broyles say. He shakes another gloved hand. It’s Peter’s, but he doesn’t know that. Olivia is there. She has a curiously unfamiliar expression on her face, but he doesn’t know her either. He’s preoccupied with the case, with Dana Grey. He doesn’t really care who they are.

Olivia seems like a completely different person, but he’s not perturbed. She’s just an eccentric scientist, like Peter’s father. They have an interesting relationship. He wonders later if she’s his protégé.

They listen to his report on Dana Grey.

“I know this sounds insane, but I don’t think this woman can die,” he tells them. Now, of course, he knows it’s not, but he feels the tension of putting the theory out there, the worry that they’ll scoff or tell him to take some leave, get some rest. It’s what Rob--

Somewhere he hears a scream, the world seems to shake, his head feels like it’s splitting in half, and everything blurs. Something’s wrong. Really, terribly wrong. Where’s Robert? Where is he? Wh--

“Lincoln. Lincoln, calm down. What happened?” someone asks, Olivia, in her real voice, but strangely tinny, like she’s being filtered through something.

His body tenses up and he feels himself falling, though his feet had been on solid ground, or is he sinking? He feels tethered to something, but it doesn’t stop the fall.

Walter growls a command and the doors to the tank are thrown open. They pull him out by his shoulders. It takes three of them, Walter, Olivia, and Peter. He wants to help but he can’t make his muscles move properly. He feels a tightness in his chest, his heart is hammering, and the probe in his neck feels like it’s going to bore his head open.

There are words coming out of his mouth, words he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to be saying. He’s babbling terrified, insane things about falling and drowning and dying.

“At least he didn’t seize,” Walter says, stepping around the increasingly large puddle on the lab floor.

Lincoln tries to pull away from them, but he realizes it’s just Olivia holding him now. He looks at her, sees fear in her eyes, and tries to gain control of his mouth. He can forgo motor function if he could just get a handle on communication.

“Lincoln?” Olivia says when he stills. “Talk to me. For real this time.”

“Liv, Liv,” he shudders. His lips won’t form her full name. He pulls at her jacket. “I’m freaking out.”

“Okay,” she says soothingly. She moves her hands across his shoulders and back. Her hands are still so warm. “We’re going to talk about it, okay? What did you see?”

“No, no,” he shakes his head. He didn’t see it, he remembered it. He can’t stop shaking. “You weren’t right. You were different and I remembered that. But Robert, I forgot Robert… he wasn’t there. How could he not be there? Not in my head?”

“Who’s Robert?” Peter asks.

“His partner, from Hartford,” Astrid answers quietly. “Killed by a shapeshifter. Just a few weeks ago.”

He looks over at Peter, who’s keeping a safe distance from the mess on the floor. He’s trying to calm his breathing, his pulse. Peter’s gaze is steady, his jaw clenched. He’s taking the hints. He remembers what Lincoln does. The difference is that it’s the only thing he remembers.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Lincoln whispers, not taking his eyes from Peter’s.

He suddenly remembers his phone when he checked the police bulletin at the lab, the other first time he was at the lab. It was an older model, he hadn’t bothered to upgrade, and it had suited him just fine. He also remembers that Robert had insisted he get the top of the line and by that time he’d been complaining loudly about the new version to anyone who would listen.

He takes a shuddering breath. Lincoln doesn’t want this at all.

He hates this place. He loves it, too. Olivia’s hands are still on him and Peter holds himself more stiffly because of that.

Olivia’s gaze is bewildered. “Are you all right?” she demands. One of her hands has crept up to wrap securely around the back of his neck, like maybe she doesn’t trust him to hold his head up properly. He looks into her eyes and he’s taken aback by the amount of worry in them. Their faces are close together and he takes comfort from her proximity.

“My head hurts,” he says and feels his muscles giving out from the strain. He didn’t mean to say that. He slumps forward and his forehead falls to Olivia’s shoulder. She pulls him closer and he unsuccessfully holds back a sob.

He’s relieved when he feels another prick in his arm and realizes Astrid has snuck up on him with another syringe. This time it contains a sedative. He smiles at her and the room goes dark. He’s glad not to have to think about it anymore.

 

He should have known they would put him in Walter’s bed. Olivia was sitting in a chair by the bed when he awoke. He peered at her and she silently handed him his glasses. She looked exhausted.

“How long was I out?” he asked.

She licked her lips and her expression was reassuring as she replied, “Just about an hour. Walter realized he wouldn’t have to use a very large dose to put you out.”

“How did he realize that?” Lincoln asked, momentarily mystified.

She smiled. “You told us about your issues with cold medicine. Walter used the active ingredient in Nyquil and you were out like a light.”

Lincoln’s eyes widened. “Oh boy,” he said, and then remembered, hopefully, most of what he said after they shot him with those drugs. “Right, okay… yeah. Where’s Peter?”

“Helping Astrid clean up still. It takes a while to drain all that water from the tank.” She put a hand on his arm and he remembered suddenly that he was actually still very naked under the sheets. “Can you tell me about it? I really need to know if there’s truth to what Peter is saying.”

He took a moment to think about it and when he began to speak it was slow and careful. “I remembered what he was talking about, the case, the woman. It was a real Fringe case. They upgraded my clearance level to work with the team. By the time it was all over, I did trust him. More than I trusted you, actually. I even wanted to come back, work more cases. It was because Peter was a good man to have on an investigation like that. He’s very smart. He has a cool head and he’s creative. I thought we worked well together.”

Her bewildered expression had returned. “What was I doing? He made it seem like we worked together often.”

Lincoln shook his head and replied, “I don’t know. You were working with Walter in the lab. You spoke differently, acted differently too, almost like another person entirely. Peter seemed put off by it as well. I never got an explanation.” He stopped to press his hands to his eyes, raising his glasses beyond the width of his palms.

“Are you okay?” Her fingers tightened on his elbow.

He frowned and looked at her helplessly. “I just remembered that morning, before I drove down to Boston to meet you, I skipped breakfast. I also remember laying it thick on Robert that day when I picked him up for work. He was the one who’d skipped breakfast and we both had physicals scheduled. How… how can both things have happened? My head feels like it’s being pried apart.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I never should have agreed to let you do this.” She tilted her head as she spoke and he saw the sincerity on her face.

“That decision wasn’t on you, Liv,” he called her by that stupid nickname without thinking about it. “Remember? We volunteer to be experimented on. I’m part of this team now, right? It was my choice. I’m okay, really. Or I will be, anyway.”

Her lips thinned as she considered his words, looked him over once more. “So do we trust Peter?”

Lincoln took a breath. “We trust his judgment. We don’t give him the files, though. Not until anything can be proven by something more than a drug trip. Sound good?”

She smiled at him. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”


End file.
